Archive: 29th October 2008

Senator Alex White, Labour Leader in the Senate and his party’s candidate in the Dublin South by-election, has expressed dismay at the fact that primary schools in Dublin South will lose up to 14 teachers under the new pupil-teacher ratios set by the Government as a result of the Budget changes.

Speaking prior to a Labour Party motion in the Dáil on class sizes, Senator White stated that: “The Government are saying that class sizes will be increasing by only one child. In reality, it’s much more serious than that. Schools will lose teachers, every child’s education will be compromised, and class sizes in Dublin South will be as high as 32.

“The worst case is St. Colmcille’s National Schools in Knocklyon, who will lose an extraordinary 5 teachers according to initial figures from the INTO. This is the same school that, in the last election, the Government promised to redevelop, ending the plight of 500 students in prefab accommodation. Today, the Government will still not let the school apply for planning permission.

“The INTO have also reported that Taney NS, Dundrum and St Mary’s NS, Lamb’s Cross will each lose a teacher. Holy Cross NS, Dundrum will lose 3 teachers and Oatlands NS, Stillorgan will lose 4 teachers under the new rules. 14 teachers is a shocking number to be lost in one constituency, and this doesn’t include the loss of English Language Support Teachers.

“The Government has responded by insisting that these measures are required in these tight budgetary times.

“However, Minister O’Keeffe is ignoring the fact that the people who will be most affected by his cuts are children, who in many cases already have had to endure high class sizes, and low standard accommodation.

“What Labour is asking tonight is simply for the Minister to stick to his own Programme for Government – which promised to decrease class sizes, not increase them.”

More :: Labour’s Private Members’ Motion will be taken in the Dáil at 7.30 pm tonight. You can view the proceedings live by clicking here.

Today’s Irish Examiner investigation into conditions in our crèches, is a real eye-opener and is a clear indication that the enforcement regime needs to be beefed up as a matter of urgency.

The conditions in some of our crèches as outlined in the report are absolutely appalling. There was one horrific instance where a young child fell and fractured his skull, but no medical attention was sought. In another case a different child fractured an arm and the parents concerned were not even notified.

It is unthinkable that such cases could possibly arise in an area that is supposed to be regulated by the HSE. This report is a litany of negligence, ignorance and potential disasters. Currently crèches are visited by the HSE inspectorate on average just once every three years, which is quite clearly grossly inadequate. We now need a clear plan of action from Minister for Children Barry Andrews, outlining how he intends to tackle this.

Parents deserve to be able to send their children to crèches, safe in the knowledge that their children will be properly cared for in a safe, secure, and nurturing environment.

Failure to act on this report could give rise to the most serious consequences.

The Labour Party will urge the Government to reverse the cuts affecting children with disabilities when it tables a motion in the Seanad next Wednesday.

The text of the motion reads:

Seanad Éireann notes that in addition to severe cuts in allowances for young persons with disabilities, the recent budget statement contains a significant number of measures affecting children with disabilities.

Seanad Éireann further notes that children with disabilities are more prone to hospital visits, and are therefore likely to be disproportionately affected by the increase in A&E charges, the increase in hospital bed fees and increases in medical insurance costs.

Seanad Éireann believes that it is essential that children with disabilities have access to mainstream education for as long as possible. In this regard, class size is an essential ingredient of success for both the teacher and student. The increase in permitted class size from 27 to 28 per teacher will adversely affect every child’s education, but most especially those with disabilities.

Seanad Éireann deplores the deferring of implementation of the “Education for Persons with Special Needs Act”, together with the 1% cut in funding for voluntary disability bodies which comes on top of an already implemented 1% cut to the same organisations by the HSE.

Accordingly, Seanad Éireann calls on the government to reverse these unacceptable cuts forthwith.

Despite not being referred to in the Budget, the Minister’s callous move to stop disability allowance for 16 and 17 year olds has caused great upset for those families affected.

The Minister told the Dáil he was looking out for those most vulnerable in society. Children with disabilities, and their families were not even considered. Instead we have an insensitive and unsympathetic Government whose cuts have been aimed at those they hoped would not complain.

Get in Touch :: I have already received numerous calls and emails in relation to this issue. If you are affected, or have any issues or concerns you would like us to raise in the Seanad, please do not hesitate to contact me.Remember ::Labour’s Private Member’s Business in the Seanad onchildren with disabilities takes place on Wednesday 29 October at 5.30pm. You can watch the proceedings live by clicking here.

I was part of the panel on last night’s Nightly News with Vincent Browne on TV3. Also on the panel were Dearbhail McDonald of the the Irish Independent, economist Jim Power and Marie Louise O’Donnell of DCU. We discussed the fallout from the Budget and reviewed the weeks events.

We need to have a debate on the medical card for the over-70s issue today. Everyone in the country is talking about these issues while we seem to be the only body that is not, apart from the opportunity to raise it on the Order of Business. We should amend the Order of Business to allow a debate with the Minister for Health and Children on this issue today.

There is nothing short of chaos in the entire budgetary process. Yesterday I made the point that people do not believe what they are being told. That is a very serious matter for a government. It is one thing to disagree with a government but another not to believe it. There is a credibility gap with the figures behind yesterday’s reversal and many other issues. The Government needs to engage seriously with the people, giving them the information and clarity they require and deserve.

Over the summer holidays, the Supreme Court brought in a serious judgment which involved criticism of the Legislature in respect of the health insurance scheme and BUPA. I am very critical of the ideology espoused by the Minister for Health and Children regarding the health services. This is one area, however, in which I agree with her. I supported her position in the BUPA case in which she argued in the Supreme Court that the important principle of risk equalisation was a fundamental prerequisite for the effective operation of community rating. In other words, it is to spread the cost of health care across the board by charging younger and healthier people the same cost for health insurance, in order to support those who are older and more in need of services.

It is a very noble communitarian principle which I would extend. The entire community, in particular those well able to pay more for health services, should be called upon to pay their fair share for a truly universal system of health care.

The communitarian ideals the Minister argued in the Supreme Court in the BUPA case should be extended across the board. For once and for all, let us face up to the need to have a proper health service with the same minimum standard of health care for all citizens, irrespective of income.

The risk equalisation scheme was interrupted in 2005 and has not yet come into place. When will the legislation be introduced for dealing with the effects of the Supreme Court judgment in the BUPA case? Will the Leader invite the Minister for Health and Children to debate the risk equalisation issue and allow us an opportunity to consider the wider question of universal health care which arises from this case?

When at some time in the future we look back over the great achievements of the past ten to 15 years in the Irish economy and society and do the balance sheet, perhaps we will see that our greatest missed opportunity in the course of that time was not to put in place a reliable, well-funded and universally accessible system of child care.

Members of the Government and parties who support the Government bear a political responsibility for failing in that task. It is manifestly the case that the Government has failed in that regard.

The National Economic and Social Forum has made the point repeatedly, and as recently as last autumn, that the subvention scheme in our community our child care system is not considered to be workable and may leave low income families at risk of not being able to continue in employment.

In other words, they might have to abandon the fledgling child care services. There was little or no consultation with those who are affected by the scheme. The NESF make the point that provision of early education for children in this country is one of the lowest in the OECD countries but that child care costs, relative to earnings, are the highest in the OECD, at nearly 30% of net family income. That’s more than double the OECD average.

The pressures and dilemmas faced by child care centres in respect of taking in children, the rates they pay and trying to train and retain employees. In any sector, be it child care, education or the health service, there must be trained professional staff. Until we understand that we require properly trained people working in child care centres and that we must give them a stake in their own work and future, we will not hold onto excellent people in the way we must.

Of course, the background to this is that so many of these centres grew from voluntary activity, where people, often young parents, got together to organise a centre. This voluntary effort at the start evolved into a more long-term proposition. They obtained a grant and then became employers. They must now proceed as a business.

However, they are incredibly frustrated by the administrative requirements in running a child care centre and they have to engage in lengthy form filling and are obliged to inquire into the means of parents proposing to send their children to the centre. They are being diverted from the job they should be doing, that is, running and developing excellent child care centres. The frustration is palpable.

The Minister for Children, Barry Andrews (FF) said in his speech to the Seanad that the eight major child care organisations that are supported by the Government and how they have contributed greatly to the development of quality child care. He was correct but proceeded to state, “I hope to strengthen those links in the coming months with the location of expertise from the Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education, the CECDE, into the early years policy unit of the Department of Education and Science”.

This should read that the Government has abolished the centre in recent weeks. When I referred on the Order of Business to our not being given the full story, this is the kind of action I mean. The centre is gone and the notion that it has been integrated into another is incorrect; it has been abolished. If we just used plain English, we might be able to make more progress in our discussion.

I joined the panel on last night’s edition of RTE Radio 1’s Late Debate. Also on the panel were Sean Ardagh TD, Harry McGee of the Irish Times and Aileen O’Meara of the Sunday Business Post. The discussion centred around the changes to the Medical Card Scheme and the 1% levy.

Can the Leader indicate how many more changes, reversals or climbdowns are likely to result from the Budget Statement the Minister for Finance made in the other House last week? Does he agree that our community and society is a laughing stock, internationally and domestically, because the budget, which is the major economic statement of the year, has degenerated into such a shambles over recent days? I agree that this is a question of candour, honesty and clarity. When will the Taoiseach look the Irish people straight in the eyes and tell them, in a clear, honest and candid manner, what precisely is happening to this country’s economy? Why are we getting a drip feed of information, for example in the statements which are made in this House?

I would like to mention the most shocking – I use the word advisedly – experience I have had since I was elected to this House. Last week, the Leader, reasonably, ordered a debate on unemployment in this Chamber. When the Minister of State came in to the House, his so-called statement did not contain a single new proposal to deal with what looks like the greatest crisis this country has faced for many years.

I do not mean that there were very few new proposals in it, but that there was not even one. The point has previously been made that the budget contained no proposals on how to deal with the scandal of unemployment that is about to return to this country. If we are to have serious debate in this House, that kind of treatment of the Seanad is disgraceful and should never be repeated.

There is an issue of confidence in the Government and particularly the Taoiseach. The Taoiseach is an able and experienced man, but is not levelling with the Irish public. Scrappy interviews in the second part of the 9 o’clock news on television, early morning press conferences and rushes out to RTE are not the way to engage with the Irish people in this sort of situation. We need serious engagement and while I accept that we in the Opposition also have a responsibility, the principal responsibility rests with the Government and particularly with the Taoiseach.

Down the road there will have to be a political reckoning for what has happened in recent months regarding when the Taoiseach, and his predecessor, knew what was coming down the line, what he knew and when he knew it. All those issues will have to be reckoned with in due course. For now, we urgently need leadership, honesty and candour from the Government, and we are not getting it regarding the banks and the economic situation. We need Goodbody Stockbrokers to tell us there will have to be a second budget some time early in 2009. We are not being told what the situation is. It is the same approach that was, unfortunately, taken by the Government on the Lisbon treaty referendum.

One cannot treat the Irish people in this way. They are angry, frustrated and concerned, and have a right to be so. They demand, and are entitled to, a straightforward approach and account for itself by the Government, and they are not getting it.

Alex with Local Election candidate Richard Humphreys at tonight's convention

I’m pleased and deeply honoured to have been selected by the Labour Party organisation in Dublin South as our candidate in the forthcoming By-Election in Dublin South. This By-Election, necessitated by the sad passing of Seamus Brennan, will now come at a most crucial time for our country.

Never before have we had such a clear opportunity to make decisive choices about what are the important values to our society. The recent budget statement – now apparently unravelling by the day – is the clearest evidence yet of this government’s failure on its most crucial responsibility: to secure the wellbeing of the citizens of the country, and to promote a caring and equal society. We are now reaping the errors of ten years of mismanagement and poor governance.

In due course, there will have to be a political reckoning as to what happened. As to what the current Taoiseach and indeed his predecessor as Taoiseach knew – and when did they know it. It is simply not credible to the Irish people that this economic crisis came out of nowhere. The vulnerability of our economy lies to a very considerable extent squarely at the door of the government. This is an issue which we will need to address in vigorous political debate.

At the moment, however, we are in a crisis. The solutions proposed by the government to redress the budgetary imbalance have seen cruel and unnecessary attacks on the future education of our young and the health and well being of our old. After many years of unprecedented growth and wealth generation these solutions are simply unacceptable. Labour, on the other hand, has put forward a bold and innovative programme to stimulate our economy. Over the coming months we will take this plan out to the doorsteps.

I look forward, along with many of my parliamentary and party colleagues to meeting with you and discussing the issues that are important to both of us, as we work towards delivering a decisive statement to this government that enough is enough, and that change is now required.

Labour leader in the Seanad, Senator Alex White, described the announcement in the Budget of the new levy on income tax as the most “dishonest tax increase ever seen”.

Speaking during the Order of Business, Senator White said: “The levy represents the crudest, most regressive and most dishonest tax increase ever seen.

“It is a tax increase, yet the Government dares not speak its name.

“Recently, the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, appeared to advocate higher taxes for the higher paid, the rich and the super rich, with which I agreed. He stated that he would try to achieve such in Government, in which respect I would have supported him. Regrettably, he did not achieve it.

“Let us face up to the taxation system and the dishonesty and unfairness therein. The Government appears to want to have it both ways. The Government is telling us to leave the debate on tax to the Commission on Taxation next year. But it then introduces an aggressive tax, undermining any suggestion of equity,” said Senator White.

Senator White added that the Government appeared to have embraced the notion of performance-related pay.

“Members of the Government have taken 10 per cent cuts, presumably based on their performances in recent months. I hope that they will revert to the House in the coming months regarding proposals on the inevitable further cuts in pay that they will need to take. The ultimate cut that they should take is not 10 per cent or 20 per cent. Rather, it is 100 per cent.”